songs that pop/top 40 radio ~exclusively played as dance remixes

did this happen often? i'm not talking about cases like john legend's "all of me" or gotye's "somebody that i used to know" where pop stations sometimes elected to play a hackish tiesto mix or shoddy radio edit w/ extra percussion to keep it more in line w/ the rest of the uptempo fare, b/c they played the original album versions plenty too. nor am i talking about hit top 40 songs that were already club-ready in their original configurations like, idk, sonique or alice deejay.

like, i remember first hearing whitney houston's "it's not right but it's okay" as its thunderpuss club mix on the top 40 stations both in my hometown and in a neighboring city -- also seeing its video on mtv with that mix, i simply assumed it was the album version. my cousin had the cd single, so i borrowed it from her and was confused when i popped it in and found that the version i knew was not in fact the original which actually sounded rather different. am i right to assume that many american top 40 stations were only playing the thunderpuss mix?

(similarly, up until recently i long assumed that i never actually heard "my love is your love" on the radio when it came out even tho i was a big radio listener at the time. it was only a few days ago when i stumbled across the jonathan peters remix on youtube that something clicked and suddenly i was having flashbacks to being a young'n giggling about mishearing the chorus as "it would take an attorney to break us". did pop radio actually play that remix instead of the album version or am i just rewriting my memories?)

err what else... there must be plenty but all i can think of right now is:

everything but the girl - missing (todd terry club mix)
lana del rey - summertime sadness (cedric gervais remix)
shania twain - that don't impress me much (dance mix) (lol -- maybe this doesn't count b/c its alterations are so minor but it was pretty amusing/gay)

also i'm only vaguely familiar w/ what goes on in uk radio but iirc y'all had to deal with lots of freemasons remixes w/ e.g. beyoncé/shakira "beautiful liar" and kelly rowland's "work"? also i guess you got the norman cook remix of cornershop's "brimful of asha" and the hex hector mix of melanie c's "i turn to you" (how popular was the skream remix of la roux's "in for the kill" w/r/t its original ver.?)

i guess i am more specifically looking for songs that were played as dance club remixes, but i guess non-dance but nonetheless significantly retooled versions that basically shut out their respective album versions on radio can be worth mentioning too... in which case it is easier for me to think of examples like:

arrested development - people everyday (metamorphosis mix)
britney spears - (you drive me) crazy (the stop remix) // boys (the co-ed remix)
christina aguilera - what a girl wants (radio edit) // come on over baby (all i want is you) [album version of "come on over" had no "baby" in the title; both sounded very different to their originals]
gorillaz - 19-2000 (soulchild remix)
jennifer lopez - i'm real (murder remix)
nsync - girlfriend (the neptunes remix)
sneaker pimps - 6 underground (nellee hooper edit)

but yeah, the club remixes getting top 40 play. was that ever a big thing or just an odd every-once-in-a-while occurrence?

Above & Beyond mix of Madonna's What It Feels Like was the video mix, also the Freemasons mix of Mesmerized. Flood remix of Depeche Mode "Freelove".

JLC remix of Mr Brightside too.

^^^ I wish that had been the case.

Brimful of Asha and Clint Eastwood feel like the canonical versions of this phenomenon, when the remix completely eclipsed the nominal a-side.

is "Tom's Diner" a cheat here?

The K-Klass remix of Bobby Brown's "Two Can Play That Game" was all that I ever heard on the radio, and I've never knowingly heard the original version of "Professional Widow" either.

The actual canonical version of this phenom is surely Tori Amos - Professional Widow (Armand Van Helden Remix).

Also:

Happy Mondays - WFL
Delirium ft. Sarah McLachlan - Silence (Fade Sanctuary Remix)
Usher - U Go t It Bad (Soulpower Remix)
Destiny's Child - Nasty Girl (Maurice's Nu-Soul Remix)

haha xpost.

k-klass were the freemasons of the early 90s, i only ever heard their remix of luther & janet's "the best things in life are free" too

armand van helden's remix of sneaker pimps' "spin spin sugar" too iirc?

agree "professional widow" is the ne plus ultra of this given that, unlike a lot of these, the original has surely never been played regularly on any radio station in any territory ever

originals of "mr brightside", "it's not right but it's ok" and "u got it bad" definitely got the most play in the uk

wasn't even aware that "nasty girl" was a single anywhere let alone that there was a famous remix of it!

in the UK there were surely also some Seamus Haji remixes that got more airplay than the originals, no?

I remember that in the Netherlands, the Armin van Buuren remix of "Human" was omnipresent

let's not forget about the essential

Sweet Female Attitude - Flowers (Sunship Mix)

I'm not sure that Professional Widow quite counts because there's so little of the original song in there, most of these are more like turbo-charged or reframed versions of the original, with the vocals remaining prominent.

I've definitely heard the Coldcut mix of Paid In Full out in the wild more than the original, although I've no idea if that was the case at the time, and the Jason Nevins remix of It's Like That completely eclipsed the original over here.

I mean most people were just vibing off Professional Widow as an Armand Van Helden banger rather than a song in its own right.

Sing It Back (Boris Musical Mix)

Also De'Lacy - Hideaway(Deep Dish Mix) and the Magician mix of I Follow Rivers.

More Norman Cook success: the original of "Renegade Master" was a very minor success.

Delerium - Silence was a huge club hit as the Tiesto remix, and a radio hit with the Svenson & Gielen mix (which was also the video version).

Benassi remix of Bring The Noise, and the Junkie XL remix of A Little Less Conversation count too in principle, although there were decades between the original and the remix.

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

in the same vein as A Little Less Conversation: Sinnerman (Felix da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)

what was the remix of "clint eastwood" that eclipsed the original? in the states it wasn't really a pop hit so i think i only heard it on mtv, which played the album version

not a club mix, but one of my fav significantly retooled radio edits has to be the human nature mix of swv's "right here"

armand van helden's remix of sneaker pimps' "spin spin sugar" too iirc?

love this one so much, sadly i never heard it (or the original version) on the radio here in the states

do we count minor dance/four-to-the-floor remixes here? stuff like gotye, "you belong with me," etc

oh wait you answered that literally in the first paragraph, disregard me

Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus" had a zillion region-specific remixes and I don't think I ever heard the same one on the radio twice (and never the LP version).

listening to the "Canadian Edit" right now

this barely counts b/c the original version was already a dance song and it honestly didn't sound that different, but september's "cry for you" was played here in the states (it got minor pop airplay) as the uk radio edit (which afaict is a shortened version of the dave ramone remix) [i assume the uk also played the uk radio edit :P ]

the ed case remix of "clint eastwood" was the only one i knew of at the time and for a while i was under the sorely mistaken impression that somehow the singer of one of the worst bands around growing up had actually stumbled into a brilliant garage side project. the original is so so terrible.

ed case also did this incredible track with ms dynamite :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmOqxSqrybo

oh i remember that remix being a bonus track on the gorillaz album -- never realized it was *the* version elsewhere!

xpost re Luther & Janet's "The Best Things In Life Are Free" - when the track first came out in 1992, it was the CJ Mackintosh mix that got all the UK airplay & club play.

I remember Heartbreak Hotel being another Whitney Houston song from that same album that I only ever heard in remix form.

huh interesting, that's the only one i remember actually hearing in its original version :P

"Take Me To Church" technically crossed over where I lived but I've never heard it on top40 in a form other than this:
https://soundcloud.com/djmiked/take-me-to-church-the-dj-mike-d-mix-radio-edit
As far as I can tell it's this guy's job to do remixes for purposes like that.

Of course I'm sure there were places where that wasn't the case, but my local stations literally never picked the original up, they just went straight to this.

Delerium - Silence was a huge club hit as the Tiesto remix, and a radio hit with the Svenson & Gielen mix (which was also the video version).

― Siegbran, Sunday, 22 March 2015 13:16 (6 hours ago) Permalink

The latter is the one I meant, I was trying to work out from youtube what the video/radio version was.

originals of "mr brightside", "it's not right but it's ok" and "u got it bad" definitely got the most play in the uk

Yeah, only ever heard the originals of the first two in the radio here in the US, and only a sprinkling of mixshow play for the Soulpower "U Got It Bad" remix, whereas the original is a radio staple to this day.

Only ever heard the originals of "Clint Eastwood", "Take Me to Church", and "Heartbreak Hotel".

The Soulpower remix of the Usher was the version released here but maybe it was an Australian thing that the record company thought we'd go for a US take on UK Garage.

There was a point in the late 90s in Canada, where there were various songs by Canadian artists that were remixed by The Boomtang Boys and those seemed to get more airplay than the originals, such as Econoline Crush's All That You Are, Bif Naked's Spaceman, and to a lesser extent Kim Stockwood's Twelve Years Old and Soul Attorney's These Are The Days.

Pretty sure I've never heard a non Bayside Boys version of "Macarena"

yeah the remixes of this ilk that get played on top 40 american radio don't even have DJ names attached to them?

the "summertime sadness" remix was one that sort of broke that mold

i remember this going back to at least like when kelly clarkson was still hot, they would throw her ballads on house beats to get them played on top 40

A couple of recent hits are Asaf Avidan "One Day", Mr Probs "Waves" and Tove Lo "Habits".

Also the Sigma remix of that Kanye "Nobody To Love" song.

Was the video version of "Rather Be" the original or the Magician remix?

The Safety Dance fits the criteria here.

Björk's "Big Time Sensuality" doesn't really count, I guess, because it's dancey to begin with, but I always thought it was interesting that the Fluke remix was pretty much the definitive version, they even used it in the iconic music video, yet it wasn't included on the album! You had to buy the single to get it.

The guy from Mr Probz' "Waves", Robin Schulz, is a serial remixer, see also his "Prayer in C" which got a lot of radio play

Moloko - Sing it Back (Boris Musical Mix Edit)

oh yeah i forgot about "waves" even tho it is still on the radio all the time lol

If you count Pitbull's singles as remixes of other songs then:

Pitbull

Madonna - "Don't Cry For Me Argentina (Miami Mix)"

Sunclub vs The Underdog Project - Summer Jam 2003

I vaguely remember seeing the OG Summer Jam (2000) on MTV

obvious answer: cheerleader by omi...only the remix is getting the airplay, at least in the US

and i've only heard "prayer in c" as the robin shulz remix on US radio

mike posner - i took a pill in ibiza (seeb remix)

of course with a title like that it was a natural candidate for such remixes

starley - call on me (ryan riback remix)

stumbled across this... guess it semi-confirms what i remembered about the thunderpuss mix of "it's not right but it's okay" on top 40 stations at the time

https://i.imgur.com/I8UUtWF.jpg
https://www.discogs.com/Whitney-Houston-Its-Not-Right-But-Its-Okay/release/12256004

*stateside top 40 stations, i should say

saint jhn - roses (imanbek remix)

LeeAnn Rimes - Can't Fight the Moonlight?

« We are your friends » Justice Vs Simian ?

do Justice vs Simian or Brimful Of Asha count when they were released as singles in their own right? if so then the JXL Little Less Conversation

The original Brimful was the A-side of the single I believe, but the Norman Cook remix got all the airplay.

I thought it got rereleased in its own right? also the Coldcut remix of Paid In Full, didn't hear the original until years after.